By The Numbers: 10 years since the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games
Canada put on a show at home.
Ten years ago, the best athletes from The Americas descended on Toronto for the 2015 Pan American Games.
From July 10-26, 2015, over 350 events took place across 36 sports in the Greater Toronto Area, with many serving as qualification events for the following summer’s Rio 2016 Olympics.
To mark ten years since the Pan Am Games made their way to southern Ontario, here are some interesting facts and figures from Toronto 2015.
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6,123 athletes from 41 nations
Forty-one nations from The Americas competed, with 6,123 athletes taking part in their respective sports.
That total made Toronto 2015 the largest multi-sport event ever hosted in Canada in terms of athletes competing, narrowly beating the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where 6,073 athletes represented 92 nations.
A record 723 Canadian athletes competing
Of those 6,123 athletes at Toronto 2015 the largest group was Team Canada with 723 — the largest contingent ever sent by Team Canada to a single event. The United States had the second-most athletes with 624.
Athletics featured 88 Canadian athletes, the most of any sport, while just three competed in golf. Canada took part in all 36 sports as hosts.
219 medals won by Canadians
In addition to the national record number of athletes, Canadians set a new national record for medals won at a single Pan American Games, winning 219 of them in total — 78 gold, 70 silver and 71 bronze. That total was good for second in the medal table, behind the United States’ 265.
That total surpassed the previous Canadian record total of 197, which were won on home soil at the 1999 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg.
3 golds and 1 silver won by Ellie Black
One of the biggest stars of the 2015 Pan Am Games for Canada was gymnast Ellie Black. Then 19 years old, Black was the reigning Commonwealth Games champion in the balance beam, and made her Olympic debut three years earlier at London 2012.
On Canadian soil, she came away with four medals — three gold and a silver — to be Canada’s most decorated athlete of the event. She struck gold in the individual balance beam, floor exercise and all-around events, and was part of the group that finished second to the United States in the team event.
Black competed in her fourth Olympics at Paris 2024, one of just five artistic gymnasts ever to compete in four or more.
28 venues across 14 municipalities
Hosting the Pan American Games was a team effort from 14 municipalities across Southern Ontario, with 28 venues used for sporting events, plus the Rogers Centre (temporarily renamed Pan Am Ceremonies Venue) for the opening and closing ceremonies.
Half of the venues were in Toronto, including existing venues at BMO Field, Coca-Cola Coliseum, Varsity Stadium and the Enercare Centre, among others. Further away from the city, several venues were built that have since become key pillars of their communities and Canadian sports — like Hamilton Stadium, York Lions Stadium, the Mattamy National Cycling Centre, and Markham Pan Am Centre, among others.
10.05 and 19.88 seconds
Those were the times it took sprinter Andre De Grasse to win the 100m and 200m gold medals in his breakout international competition, one year before his first Olympics. De Grasse and Canada’s 4x100m relay team thought they also won gold in a Pan Am Games record time, but were disqualified for a lane infringement.
De Grasse has since gone to three Olympics and tied for the national record for Olympic medals with seven, including a 200m gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and a 4x100m gold at Paris 2024.
$38 million under budget
Toronto 2015 is considered one of the best editions of the Pan American Games ever held, and impressively it was under budget by $38 million according to a report from the organizing committee in 2019.
Among the things included in the budget were the aforementioned new venues built specifically for the Games, which have since boosted the Canadian sporting landscape — and will continue to do so for years to come thanks to a $60 million legacy fund that was also included in the budget to maintain those facilities for at least 20 years.
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